Press Clips

Hundreds of articles about Wantha Davis appeared on the sports pages of newspapers across the country. Her smiling face in winners' circle photos was a novelty. She was the featured subject of four newsreels. The old-fashioned, pre-feminist commentary seems dated by today's standards.

One reporter described Wantha as “a beautiful girl with a sunshine personality, who insists thet she is an old fashioned girl who doesn’t drink, smoke, care for cosmetics, goes to Church, likes the comfort of trousers verses dresses, is happy and contented—a splendid specimen of an out-door girl.”

Praise came from one of the era’s most knowledgeable racing columnists, Oscar Otis. He opined that Davis was not only “the best girl rider in America” but “among the 10 most able riders in the nation” such as Eddie Arcaro and Johnny Longden.

After Wantha's 1949 victory over Johnny Longden, Nelson Fisher wrote in the San Diego Union, “By now even the most calloused skeptics over the idea of a girl competing against a boy are acknowledging she has what it takes.” In 1953, Fisher wrote that Wantha rode horses “like most male jockeys would like to.”

Her equestrian skills were well recognized but the phenomenon of a female jockey was often the focus of media attention, resulting in pejorative headlines like these: